140 INSECT LIFE x
build solitary cottages, while where there are good
roads, they collect in populous cities, served by rail-
roads, which, so to say, annihilate distance; they
assemble in immense human hives called London or
Paris.
The Languedocian Sphex has quite another
lot. Its prey is a heavy ephippiger—a single
morsel representing the whole sum of provender
amassed by the other predatory insects bit by
bit. What the Cerceris and other strong- fly ing
insects do by dividing their labour is accomplished
by a single effort. The weight of the prey rendering
flight impossible, it must be brought home with all
the delays and fatigue of dragging it along the
ground. This one fact obliges her to accommodate
the position of her burrow to the chances of the
chase: first the prey and then the dwelling. Hence
no rendezvous at a general meeting-place; no living
among neighbours, no tribes stimulating themselves
by mutual example—only isolation where chance has
led the Sphex—solitary labour, unenthusiastic, though
always conscientious. First of all prey is sought,
attacked, and paralysed. Then comes making the
burrow. A favourable spot is chosen as near as
possible to that where lies the victim, so as to
abridge the toil of transport, and the cell of the
future larva is rapidly hollowed to receive an egg
and food as soon as possible. Such is the very
different method shown by all my observations. I
will mention the chief of them.
If surprised in its mining, one always finds this
Sphex alone—sometimes at the bottom of some
dusty niche a fallen stone has left in an old wall—